Complaining is not a word I like because its negative connotations imply your right to express
disapproval and have it met with instant change. Which of course doesn’t usually happen. And that’s because disapproval feels like a moral judgment and no-one responds well to that. I prefer to use something like ‘expressing dissatisfaction’ but it’s not as catchy of course.

One of our mentors, Terry Real has a great 5 step process for complaining which I want to share with you:

Before you begin though, ask yourself why you want to express your dissatisfaction. This will affect your tone, your body language and the words you use so it’s pretty important.

Do you:

Want to vent and show you’re right?

Want to change your partner?

Want a better connection?

If you want to make things better then here are your 5 steps:

Step 1) This is what I observed

Stick to the facts that a video would have recorded. Keep it simple and behavioural. Don’t interpret or make assumptions. For example, ‘You came in, made yourself a drink and went straight to your laptop without greeting me.’

Step 2) This is the meaning it had for me

We all interpret things differently and must take responsibility for what we perceive and make up about it.

By saying ‘The story in my head is…’ you can share your interpretation without blaming or accusing your partner. Remember, you want to keep them engaged with you. They are likely to drop out at the first whiff of judgement.

For example.’ The story in my head was that I must have done something wrong and you were cross with me.’

Step 3) This is how I felt

Again, take responsibility here. No-one makes you feel anything. Remember not to make any judgements on your partner or their experience, just talk about yourself and your own feelings.

For example, ‘I felt rejected and hurt.’

Step 4) Here is something you could do or say that would make me feel better

Make sure you tell your partner what you want from them. A clear request will help you get what you want. (Remember to steer well clear of demands).

For example, ‘If you have something pressing to do before greeting me, please could you let me know?’

If you don’t ask, you can’t expect to get!

Step 5) Let it go

Now that you’ve communicated your thoughts and feelings you need to let it go. You’ve done what you can to make things better.

Many of us find it very difficult to accept compliments. We either brush them off with self- deprecating words and reasons why they can’t possibly be true or we cancel them out by remembering the last critical comment we heard from the same person. At the very least, we feel uncomfortable. Sound familiar?

Why do we do that? Because many of us have poor self- esteem and our internal dialogue speaks a different language. It speaks the language of failure and of being unlovable. Of being too fat, too thin, too wrinkled, too stressed, too anxious, too reactive, too boring, just plain old ‘TOO’.

One of the wonderful things about a compliment is that we actually get to hear someone else’s experience of us. They have their own view and see us differently. If you can get through the initial discomfort and FEEL the compliment, it will quickly put a smile on your face and create warmth and energy between you.

Not only that, but receiving a compliment increases the dopamine in our brains. It makes us feel better about ourselves and inspires us to go back for more by repeating whatever we did or said. Or by just continuing to be our best selves.

Notice how delighted you feel when you give a compliment and it lights up your partner’s face. Conversely, notice how it feels when your compliments fall on deaf ears and are rejected.

We all crave positive attention and need to have positive energy shared with us. Perhaps if we can practise receiving compliments, we can inspire others to do so as well.

Don’t forget that we need 5 times as much positive to cancel out the negatives in our relationships so every compliment is as GOLD!

Have you ever been in a situation where you feel you are happily ticking along?

Life feels good. Life seems good for your partner too. Even better, the two of you seem to be ticking along together remarkably well.

Then comes the bombshell. Your partner suddenly suggests a huge change. They want to throw all that ‘ticking along happiness’ into the air and suddenly the ground beneath you shifts. It opens up and you’re falling. And you can’t quite catch a foot hold, let alone a hand hold.

Or maybe things haven’t been that great. Maybe you’ve been scratching your heads together for a while but haven’t come up with an answer.

Perhaps you’re happy but you suspect your partner isn’t quite as happy as you are. You bury the thought and just hope he’ll ‘man up quietly’. Or that she’ll just ‘get over it’ and everything will be fine.

And then the bombshell. A new job perhaps, far from home, far from your friends and family. Far from the school your child has just settled into. Far from your own job.

A new house, just when the one you’re in finally feels like home, and what’s more, the home you’ve always longed for.

Or maybe, it’s ‘Let’s bring Mum/ Dad to live with us.’ And your head spins. You can only see all the reasons why NOT.

Now you’re terrified because your partner has caught the vision and you know they will never be able to settle again. Meanwhile, you can’t even find a place to process it in your own head.

There are two essential reactions to avoid in this situation.

The first is that you try to change your partner’s mind. You gather in all your best persuasive powers and push hard to stay where you are. You use the children, you use the grandparents, you use the dog. You are just too scared to contemplate losing this one. And the fear does an excellent job of keeping a balanced view way out of sight. It feels like a life or death situation and you must win at all costs. But your win will be at the expense of your partner. Because in this mind-set, you have forgotten that you are a team, that you either lose together or win together.

The second bad reaction is to cave in to avoid the tension and to keep the peace. Compromise has no place in this situation either. Many people think that relationships are about compromise but I disagree. Yes, they are about small daily compromises that are unimportant on the grand scale of things. But compromise can imply loss. Giving yourself up over something big does not bode well for the long-term. It can lead to resentment. And unresolved resentment ends up as contempt.

Couples are often afraid of conflict and assume it means they have a bad relationship. But healthy conflict is good for growth as long as you repair well. And in this case, as long as you know how to negotiate.

Successful negotiation needs careful preparation. The first thing to do is to find out where this new challenge sits in your relationship. Does it sit between you and separate you? If so, then take it out and put it on the table in front of you – then move onto the same team and start the work together. Identify your shared values for the negotiation first. Then identify your goals.

Prepare yourselves by asking what anxiety feels like in your body when you’re triggered. Find your own soothing mechanism that you can use during the process when you begin to feel upset.

Next break the bombshell down into pieces. What does it mean? What is important?

What do you think, what do you feel, what do you want and why?

Once all your cards are on the table, it can be helpful to put a value on them. Perhaps a number according to their importance to you. How important is it? Are some more important? Others less so?

Consider how the different options might turn out for you – with an open mind. Knowing what you want is not the same as getting what you want. However, it is an essential part of negotiation because you must be standing on your own ground before you can choose how and where to move to. It must be an ‘I chose this because’, not an ‘I had no choice, I had to keep him/her happy’.

It is vital that you know what you want on your own behalf, and then you can ask yourself what you might want on your partner’s behalf. In this way we take responsibility for our choices.

Win-win solutions are hard to attain and require a lot of self –awareness, patience and especially a lot of courage. You will need to be curious and genuinely interested in your partner’s values, reasons and preferences. Most importantly, remember that negotiation is an ongoing process. It is not a single event.

If this seems like really hard work – it is. But it can be fun too, especially if the bombshell is just about a move. I know from experience because my husband and I went through it several years ago when we moved country, continent, culture and language – with our three children. And then we went through it again nearly 20 years later when we moved home. But it was worth it because at no time has either of us been able to blame the other for the tough stuff. The reason being that each one of us made the choice ourselves – with both feet.

Good luck!

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Couples therapy has a rather a bad reputation with some people. I know because sometimes when I tell them what I do, they say that going for couples’ therapy is thought of as the quickest road to divorce.

I also know because clients tell me of their previous experiences and sometimes my toes curl. Please don’t misunderstand me. My toes don’t curl because I think I’m better than everyone else, they curl because I love what I do. And because I’m a huge advocate of great relationships. I want people to thrive in life because they’re nourished and thrilled at home and I believe that most of us can be when we know how.

In defence of my profession, one of the problems is that people go to counsellors who say they do couples’ work but are not trained relationship specialists.

The work of individual therapy and couples’ therapy is completely different. An individual therapist will champion you. My job is to champion your relationship, to keep you both safe as you learn to share your fears and desires. My job is to hold the hope until you can catch it and run with it yourselves.

It takes courage to invest the time and emotional effort into couples’ work. As for the road to divorce – with the average cost of divorcing in the UK placed at around £70,000 these days, it’s a lot less costly both in money and in emotional fall out for the whole family.

So, what are the 5 things you need to know?

The Blame Game

When you’re feeling hurt and afraid, it’s always easier to blame your partner. There is nothing more stressful than facing a potential split or a miserable future together. Many people turn up knowing there needs to be change but secretly hoping (and sometimes not so secretly) that their partner will do most of the changing.

But the intention of couples’ work is not to find out who is right and who has to change. It’s about showing up with individual responsibility. The key questions are ‘How did WE get here?’ and Where do WE go from here? Both partners ALWAYS play a role in some way.

Yes of course your painful experience is valid and will be heard but for the best possible outcome you will need to be willing to hold a mirror up to yourself as well. It’s often fear of that mirror that keeps us in the blame game.

I’ve worked it out, can you help me convince my partner?

Most of us try to work things out when we’re suffering in our relationships. Who wouldn’t? The trouble is that once we have drawn our conclusions we interpret all new information in a way that supports our conclusions. We get stuck in our mental belief systems desperately trying to keep some measure of control. The irony is that control is the one thing we don’t have when we’re so rigid. The more you focus on your conclusions, the less initiative you’ll take to change the patterns between you. Letting go of preconceived ideas and assumptions is the first step. Creativity is not born in deeply held ruts.

Be prepared to feel stretched.

Holding up a mirror can be deeply uncomfortable. Many of us have developed ways of avoiding seeing what we don’t like. You’ll need to push through your emotional comfort zones into your stretch zone. Try new ways of thinking and doing things. Be curious and see how many new things you can discover about yourself and your partner. Find the courage to speak up instead of resentfully complying or withdrawing. You will reap surprising rewards, plus it feels great.

How long will it take?

Today’s tasks are often seen in terms of how soon they can be accomplished and how easy it will be to get a satisfying outcome. But relationships are complex and multi layered. It’s what makes them so rewarding. Be prepared to give the change process a lot of time.

You can learn communication skills and conflict management exercises but like plasters, they don’t create lasting change. You will need to look at your current relational style in the light of your historical relationship patterns.

Emotions are the heart of relationship but many of us are not used to recognising them and understanding the messages they have for us. Sometimes it’s not what we are getting that causes the problems but rather what we’re not getting and that can be harder to identify.

Can you fix us?

This is a question that I’m often asked and the answer is ‘No, but you can fix you. Because the exciting part is that you are the ones who hold the key to your great relationship.’ Sometimes things FEEL absolutely hopeless and this is why I hold the hope for people when they can’t hold it for themselves. Chinese philosopher Laozi said ‘A journey of 1000 miles begins with one small step.’ I use this quote often because one small step is not so hard, and then another, and another….and before long, the journey becomes a pleasure again.